Kazakhs

Kazakhs are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia and Eastern Europe. They share a common culture, language and history that is closely related to those of other Turkic peoples. The majority of ethnic Kazakhs live in their transcontinental nation state of Kazakhstan. Ethnic Kazakh communities are present in Kazakhstan's border regions in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, northern Uzbekistan, northwestern China (Xinjiang), western Mongolia (Bayan-Ölgii), and northern Iran (Golestan). The Kazakhs are the second-largest Turkic ethnic group in Central Asia and were previously the most influential of the various Central Asian ethnic groups. The Kazakhs emerged as a distinct people as a result of the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire. Distinct Kazakh ethnic identity developed throughout the 15th–16th centuries, with the final consolidation of Turko-Mongol tribes into a unified Kazakh nation within the Kazakh Khanate. The term Kazakh is used to refer to ethnic Kazakhs, while the term Kazakhstani refers to all citizens of Kazakhstan, regardless of ethnicity.